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Wednesday, August 24, 2016

If you would like to know why your plants may be late in shipping, here's why:

Decorah is the town we usually ship from - roads damaged, and out -

At the moment; water is still rising; and it's raining again in a spotty but heavy fashion; I just got soaked to the skin in a downpour that was not on the radar when I went out to check the sheep fence. We're not flooding here, yet; but our ground is totally saturated; and our neighbors are in real emergency situations.

Friday, August 19, 2016

There is a radar picture to bring tears of joy to any meteorologist - it's absolutely classic, absolutely clear - and dangerous. The kind of storm where they truly save lives, by giving warning in time. This is known as a "bow echo" storm formation; because they resemble an archer's bow. See that little white plus sign, just to the right of the middle of the bow? That's Badgersett Farm; precisely.

And that's absolutely the most dangerous place to be for one of these storms; and if you come this weekend for the Field Day - you'll see why. That's where the most violent winds are; trained observers in Preston reported gusts over 70 mph (hurricane) for this storm; as I watched it, I was guessing 70 to 80 mph.

From that Wikipedia entry: "Bow echoes are capable of producing straight-line winds that are just as strong as many tornadoes. A strong bow echo will produce more widespread and intense damage than the majority of tornadoes. "

Yup. We can tell you that's true.

We got hit by a similar storm - very hard - just a few weeks ago. This one - was worse, in one particular way. The first storm broke a lot of trees; but left the pecans and chestnuts pretty much entirely still on the trees.

Some idea of what it looked like as we were scurrying for cover - our radios did give us the NOAH emergency warning in time. It was darker than this, though; the camera couldn't catch it.

This storm - broke more trees; including some pecans (first one didn't break pecans) - but it also took a huge part of the nut crop off the trees. For the chestnuts, there is no hope those downed burrs will ever have any nut inside of any use. The pecans - are far from fully ripe; but it's not impossible they might still "force-ripen", using resources in the shuck - and make pig food, anyway.

In any case - we'll now have to pick up the downed nuts - before the true harvest; to prevent the bad ones getting mixed with the good ones. Only twice the work - for maybe half the crop.

Come see. It's part of the whole picture. There ARE things you can do with your planting to minimize storm risk. We've had chestnut crops survive astonishing winds in the past- they can. But not this time.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

As the entire world knows, our Annual Field Day; which we've been holding every year for more than 25 years; is always scheduled for the 3rd Saturday in August - which is this weekend; Saturday the 20th.

And it looks like rain. Really looks like rain, in this very rainy summer. So - we'll be having Field Day activities on Sunday, too. If Saturday is what fits your plans, and you're willing to risk the rain- we'll be here for you. And we'll be ready for you on Sunday; too (the weather predictions look great for Sunday - at the moment - clear sky, light wind and a high temperature of only 66°F...)

This has happened only once before - but in fact we have made the decision that from now on this is how it will happen everyyear.

And. Even BIGGER NEWS - we've made the decision to be formally "OPEN" - on ALL the weekends, from this start in August - until Christmas. If you can't make it here for our Field Day; you'll now be able to just COME - any Saturday or Sunday; from 1 to 6 PM.

And. Besides 'seeing the sights' - on those days you will now be able to "Pick Your Own!" - both hazelnuts and chestnuts. When they're ripe, of course.

We'll show you how, and teach how to handle them afterwards. We're going to be learning how to teach and show, of course; but we're ready to do that.